Abstract
With the development of space optical remote sensing technology, especially off-axis space cameras, the thermal dimensional stability of the support structure has become increasingly demanding. However, the asymmetry of the camera structure has not been fully considered in the past design of the thermal stability of off-axis cameras. In order to solve this problem, a support structure with very low thermal deformation in the asymmetric direction is presented in this paper for an off-axis TMA camera. By means of the negative axial thermal expansion coefficient of carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP), a composite laminate with near zero-expansion was obtained by adjusting the direction of fiber laying, and the asymmetric feature of the off-axis remote sensing camera structure was fully considered, thus enabling the support structure to have good thermal dimensional stability. We carried out a thermal load analysis and an optical analysis of the whole camera in the case of a temperature rise of 5 °C. The results show that the zero-expansion support structure has good thermal stability, and the thermal deformation in the asymmetric direction of the camera is obviously smaller than that of the isotropic laminate support structure. Compared with the isotropic support structure, the influence of thermal deformation on MTF is reduced from 10.43% to 2.61%. This study innovatively incorporates the asymmetry of the structure into the thermal sta-bility design of an off-axis TMA camera and provides a reference for the thermal stability design of other off-axis space cameras.
Highlights
In recent years, space remote sensing technology has played an increasingly important role in military and civil high-tech fields, and more and more precision support structures are required for the new generation of space remote sensors
The support structure consists of frames and a bearing cylinder, and its basic structure is a carbon-fiber-reinforced plastics (CFRP) laminated plane
The thermal stability of the support structure is closely related to the coefficient of thermal expansion (CTE) of the CFRP laminates
Summary
Space remote sensing technology has played an increasingly important role in military and civil high-tech fields, and more and more precision support structures are required for the new generation of space remote sensors. Lin Yang quantita-tively studied the axial thermal expansion coefficient of the carbon fiber rod through the CTE function, and demonstrated passive thermal compensation for an off-axis space cam-era in the optical axis direction [20] In these studies, the thermal stability design was only committed to ensuring the position accuracy of the structure along a certain main direction under the thermal load, which is scarcely sufficient to meet the thermal stability requirements of the asymmetric support structure in an off-axis remote sensing camera. By adjusting the angle of the carbon-fiber-reinforced polymer (CFRP) laminate, we were able to design a type of composite laminate with extremely low thermal expansion, which was applied to the support structure design of an off-axis space remote sensing camera, and the thermal stability of the support structure in the asymmetric di-rection was realized. The effectiveness of the thermal stability design for an off-axis camera was verified using finite element thermal deformation analysis and optical analysis
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